


Let It Go (Can't Hold It Back Anymore)

by RomanoffonamoR



Series: Marvel Cinematic Littleverse [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Play, Angst, Bigs and littles are known, Gen, Little Maria Hill, Littleverse, Maria Hill needs a hug, Maria is a little pretending to be big, Marvel Cinematic Littleverse, Natasha Romanoff needs a hug, Non-Sexual Age Play, Past Child Abuse, Past violence committed by children, Red Room, little Natasha romanoff, someone wets themselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-04 12:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12168948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomanoffonamoR/pseuds/RomanoffonamoR
Summary: In a world where Bigs and Littles are known, Maria Hill is a Little pretending to be Big.What happens when someone finally discovers her secret?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Note:** If you haven't already, you should really read "Maria Hill and the Three Bears" before reading this one.

When Agent Romanoff had texted her that morning to come celebrate their one month anniversary of working together, this wasn’t _quite_ what she’d had in mind. Drinking beer while eating takeout and watching shitty spy movies had _seemed_ like a reasonable expectation on Maria’s part, but then again, nothing about her partnership with Romanoff had matched her expectations so far, so why should this?

Instead of a twenty-five year old former Soviet assassin greeting her at the door, a two year old Toddler in a “Daddy’s Lil Monster” onesie stood grinning up at her from around the aptly themed pink and blue pacifier in her mouth. Maria’s first instinct was to slam the door in the Little’s face and retreat to her car so she could regroup. And by regroup, she meant drive away as fast as she legally could.

Because babysitting Little Natasha was _not_ something she was prepared to do tonight. Or any night for that matter. One, it was against SHIELD’s fraternization policy regarding off the clock conduct between Bigs and Littles, and two, the last time she’d been in charge of the girl in her own home she’d almost let her drown in her bubble bath.

So no, this was not acceptable, and Maria had every intention of putting her foot down and demanding Natasha explain herself, but as soon as she opened her mouth to do just that, the Toddler’s eyes grew wide and began to fill with tears. 

Now, Maria liked to think she was a half decent agent and could control what her body language was telling others, but as good as she was at masking, Natasha was a hundred times better at reading, and the girl knew instantly that she was about to be rejected. _Shit._  

“Natasha, honey, please don’t cry, please,” Maria nearly dropped the six pack she was holding as she stepped across the threshold, awkwardly wrapping her other arm around the girl’s shoulders in an attempt at comfort. 

In the six weeks that had passed since the near drowning incident, Maria had gotten marginally better at interacting with other Littles. She still wasn’t anyone’s first choice of post mission caretaker, with the obvious exception of Natasha, but the Strike Team didn’t run screaming from the room when they saw her anymore, so that was progress, right?

Having been paired up with Agent Romanoff, while not something she’d originally wanted, hadn’t been all that bad. Being a handler wasn’t as taxing as she’d been lead to believe it was, but that may have been because Romanoff was incredibly independent when it came to her work and needed very little supervision while on missions. It was the post mission aftercare that Maria was now responsible for, and up until now it had always occurred while they were still on SHIELD property.

Caretaking the girl in her own home was an entirely different matter, and Maria wasn’t looking forward to being chewed out for this when Fury inevitably found out. Because there was no way he wasn't going to find out. The man could see more with one eye than most could with two. 

Now that she’d entered the apartment and embraced the girl, Natasha’s tears magically disappeared and she wriggled out of Maria’s grasp, slapping her bare feet on the floor as she bounced adorably in place.

“Lemma guess, you weren’t actually sad and were just manipulating me into not leaving, right?” Maria asked with an eyebrow raised. She wasn’t angry with the Toddler; she’d become quite familiar with this tactic of hers by now, but she _was_ a little annoyed with Romanoff’s adult self for the bait and switch maneuver.

Romanoff had to have known that she would decline an invitation over to babysit her Little self, so had lied about tonight's celebratory purpose to simply get her into the apartment. Because now that she was there, she was obviously not leaving. As nervous as Maria was about fucking this all up again, she couldn’t leave Natasha by herself.

Since Agents Barton and Morse were currently in Germany on an Op, it meant she either had to stay for the evening and watch the girl, or bring her back to SHIELD HQ and watch her for the evening in her office. So really, it made logistical sense to stay put and simply hope no one at work found out.  

“‘Ria p’ay!” Natasha had stopped jumping around and was now tugging on Maria’s hand, trying to get her to follow her to the door leading to the special Little apartment. As they walked, she set the beer down on a side table since neither of them would be drinking it now anyways. 

The moment Maria had both hands free, Natasha stopped walking and instead climbed up into her arms, her bare legs wrapping around Maria's hips to help keep herself in place.

Octopus mode had engaged. 

“You're lucky you're so light,” Maria laughed as she shifted the girl higher up her torso so she was perched properly on her hipbone. The girl’s diaper crinkled with the adjustment, the pink and white patterned plastic peeking out from the leg holes of her onesie. “Did Coulson buy you this one?” she asked, indicating the words scribbled across Natasha’s chest. 

Natasha shook her head. “Unca Furry,” she explained from around her pacifier. Maria knew her words weren’t slurred due to the obstruction, and that was just the way the Toddler pronounced ‘Uncle Fury’.

“I should have known,” Maria smirked, secretly wondering if the man had ordered it online or had actually gone into a ‘Littles R Us’ and purchased it in person. Maria tried to avoid big box stores herself and instead bought most of her Little gear online using a secured pseudonym. It was just easier to stay off the grid that way. 

Stepping into the Little apartment, Maria’s initial response hadn’t changed all that much since the first time she’d seen it. She was still just as awestruck at the bright colors and abundance of toys littering the floor, though this time there was a rather suspicious lack of My Little Ponies laying around. She carried the girl towards the giant sofa at the far end of the room, but when she went to put her down Natasha just tightened her limbs around her, refusing to let go.

“No p’ay here ‘Ria. Bedroom,” Natasha insisted, pointing down the hallway. 

Maria couldn’t help but tense, since that was where the bathroom of doom was located as well, and as far as she was concerned, Natasha could be covered from head to toe in mud and she wouldn’t dare suggest a bath. That’s what the laundry and carpet steamers were for anyway.

“Alright, you want to play in the bedroom?” she asked the girl, smiling herself when Natasha beamed brightly at her while nodding her head, her lopsided pigtails swaying with the motion. “Okay. We’ll play in there for a while before I make us some dinner. How does that sound?” 

Natasha pulled her pacifier from her mouth this time before responding, “‘kay.”

Maria felt her heart melt a little as the Toddler replaced her pacifier and snuggled into her arms, resting her head on her shoulder. It was a little awkward continuing to walk when she was like this, but Maria had quickly learned to manage the shift in their conjoined center of gravity. Natasha was definitely a cuddler once she’d deemed you safe enough to relax around.

The first time Maria had experienced this was barely a week after her fateful meeting with Coulson, where she’d learned Fury was assigning her to be Romanoff’s handler. She had protested at first, but quickly learned the change in responsibilities wasn’t a suggestion or offer, but an already done deal. Coulson was simply alerting her to the newly revised Terms and Conditions of her contract, particularly the paragraph all the way at the bottom that now stated all agents level 6 and over _must_ be a handler.

And wouldn’t you know, Agent Romanoff just happened to be next in line to receive one. It was all so conveniently timed that Maria didn’t believe any of it, and after a few moments of staring her co-worker down in unimpressed, steely silence, he’d caved and told her the truth: Agent Romanoff had specifically requested her for the job.

He’d explained that Romanoff had thus far turned down every offered and available agent; that she didn’t trust easily after her experiences in the Red Room. The fact that she’d made the suggestion on her own without any outside prompting had been enough of a reason for Fury to grant her request on the spot. 

Truthfully, Maria found it a little irksome that Fury thought he could make that decision for her, but who was she kidding? Fury could assign her to work in the canteen shoveling slop if he wanted and there was nothing she could do about it. She may have been the Deputy Director, but Fury was still her boss and Maria was very much aware that her title could be taken away as swiftly as it had been given.

Besides, as she'd quickly found out, being the handler of one of SHIELD’s only Toddlers actually had quite a lot of benefits. As scared as everyone was of Agent Romanoff: The Black Widow, they absolutely adored Natasha: The Two Year Old. This meant she got away with a lot more than most Littles in the organization. And Maria, being her official handler slash caretaker, got to cash in on these benefits as well.

For one, she’d been given a new office. It still wasn't as large as Coulson’s, but it was more than twice the size of her old one so she wasn't complaining. It also had a sofa with a pullout mattress inside, perfect for impromptu afternoon naps. And Natasha took a lot of naps. Mostly they were “get out of being an adult and doing paperwork” naps, but Maria couldn't really fault her for that. Paperwork sucked. 

But now that naptime had become a thing, Maria found herself making more and more excuses to join the girl for a quick doze after lunch. Bigs weren't supposed to need naps, so Maria often had to suffer long hours with only coffee as a means of reenergizing. Now that she had a Toddler in her care, she didn't feel like she was potentially exposing her secret by drifting off alongside the girl for a while. 

And Natasha really seemed to enjoy sharing her naptime with her. Often times she’d refuse to lay down until Maria stopped what she was doing and climbed into the bed with her. She’d then latch onto her handler and wouldn’t let go, even in her sleep.

It had been a little awkward at first, but Maria had grown to enjoy the closeness. Natasha was only a few inches shorter than her, but the way she slept all curled into a ball made her seem that much smaller and vulnerable. Maria wasn’t really a Big, but she couldn’t deny an intense feeling of wanting to protect the Little.

It was that same feeling she felt now as she headed down the hallway towards the bedroom. They weren’t heading to the bathroom, she understood this, but the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end regardless. Reaching the door Natasha was now pointing to, Maria centered herself for a moment before pushing it open. 

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, then immediately winced when Natasha giggled and poked her in the cheek. She was working on not cursing around the Littles, but honestly her exclamation was entirely justified. As amazing as the main play area of the Little’s apartment was, it had absolutely _nothing_ on the giant bedroom the three shared.

The room itself was larger than the living room, having once been two separate bedrooms that were converted into one giant one. She remembered being told that the last time she was there, but for some reason it hadn’t crossed her mind just how massive the room could be. It was at least 30 feet wide, and maybe 18 or 20 feet deep. More than enough room for three very different Littles to have their own space without feeling crowded.

Directly across from where she was standing was a loft bed rather convincingly disguised as a treehouse. The ceiling in the room was pitched, so the bed stood at least 6 feet off the ground. Tall enough for an adult to stand beneath it without hitting their head. It was obviously Clint’s, and not just because he liked being up high as an adult, but because there was a handwritten sign at the entrance to the ‘house’ that read “NO GIRLS ALLOWED”.

Beneath the loft was a small desk with an old CRT television situated on it, along with an assortment of what appeared to Maria to be old school video game consoles. Across from the desk was a giant purple beanbag chair with a handful of black controllers currently resting in the adult sized indent. It was exactly the type of setup Maria would have expected a twelve year old boy to have. 

Bobbi’s side of the room, however, was nothing like a typical eight year old girl’s. Mainly, there was a giant red, silver, and blue Mack Truck parked along the wall to the left, the front end turned 90 degrees so it was facing the middle of the room. It wasn’t fully to scale, but it was the largest replica she’d ever seen. 

The cab of the truck was definitely large enough for Bobbi to sit in comfortably, and from where Maria stood it looked like the interior was, for the most part, true to life. There was a steering wheel, an assortment of switches and buttons on the dashboard, and a chain hanging from the roof that looked suspiciously like an air horn. 

It wasn’t immediately evident where the girl slept, so Maria decided to get over her shock and venture closer, coming around the back end of the silver and blue striped trailer. From her new vantage point she could see that there was a ladder leading to a bed along the top, and beneath that were two doors that blocked what must have been a secret alcove. If Maria had to guess, it was probably filled with whatever toys the eight year old didn’t want to share with her siblings. 

“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” she mused as she took a few steps back to admire the vehicle in its entirety. It was then that she noticed the semi-familiar logo on the side and she quickly realized the entire thing was actually modeled after a Transformer. This of course made it a hundred times cooler than it already was. She wasn’t a fan of the franchise herself, but could definitely understand Bobbi’s apparent obsession with it. 

“No touchy,” Natasha instructed, leaning her face right up against Maria’s as if she were whispering, but at full volume.

“Don’t worry, I won’t touch it. I wouldn’t be surprised if your sister had it booby trapped,” Maria answered, turning now to face the opposite end of the room where Natasha’s side was. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but this definitely wasn’t it.

It almost had a fairy or fantastical feel to it, with light green carpet and a fake plastic tree that seemed to double as a storage unit. In the center of the area was a round crib like bed that was decorated to look like a tree stump, with mushroom-esque steps spiraling around it, obviously to help the girl climb in. The bed itself was maybe 3 feet off the ground, but sunken into the stump a ways so that it felt cozy and enclosed. There was also a foot tall railing all the way around the edge, with only a small break where the mushroom steps reached the top. 

It was very much a crib, but it was also large enough for a full sized adult to stretch out in the center of the circular mattress. It was obvious that was where Natasha slept, because the sides of the bed were currently occupied by forty or fifty stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes. Hanging a few feet above the center of the crib was a light pink canopy that seemed to provide some shade from the room’s otherwise harsh overhead lights. 

“Down ‘Ria,” Natasha had begun squirming in her arms and so Maria let her down to the floor, watching as she crawled over to the plastic tree and opened up one of the doors, revealing a shelving unit stacked with pacifiers. The Toddler pulled her current one from her mouth and set it in a little mesh baggy that was hanging off the tree, then spent a good minute and a half picking out a replacement.

Maria thought it was the cutest thing she’d ever witnessed, and remained perfectly quiet and still so as not to ruin Natasha’s focus. Once the girl had chosen her new soother and popped it into her mouth, she turned around and crawled back over. As soon as she was close enough she gripped Maria’s pant leg and tugged, obviously indicating she wanted her to sit.

Obliging the girl, Maria kicked her shoes off and sat cross legged on the carpet, her eyes scanning over the various toys littering the girl’s area. There wasn’t a single My Little Pony in sight and part of her was almost a little disappointed. As uncomfortable as the memories of her childhood were, she did at one point enjoy playing with the toys.

There were certainly a lot of other things to choose from, however, and Maria did her best to remain passive and let Natasha dictate how and with what she wanted the two of them to play with. It wasn’t that she felt on the verge of dropping, but Natasha was incredibly perceptive and Maria worried she’d pick up on any non-typical Big reactions from her.

This suited the Toddler just fine, and the two of them continued to play with the plastic animals and toy fairy princesses for well over an hour before the girl suddenly dropped the figures she was holding and looked quickly up at Maria. There was an uncomfortable expression on her face, one Maria instantly recognized as her “I really need to pee” look.

True to Coulson’s word all those weeks ago, Natasha was capable of recognizing the urge and taking care of her business on her own. And as far as Maria knew, she hadn’t once actually used the diapers she always wore, preferring to use the potty “like a big girl”. But maybe it was different when she was at home and not at work? The desperation suddenly spreading across the girl’s face didn’t help Maria’s growing concern.

Dropping the toys she was holding herself, Maria immediately got to her feet and then hoisted Natasha up by the armpits, lifting her onto her hip as she began to stumble her way towards the door she assumed led into the master bathroom.

“Hold on sweetie, hold on, I’ll get you to the toilet,” she reassured herself as much as the girl in her arms as she crossed the vast bathroom to the nearest toilet. It was the one she’d sat Bobbi on while running the ill fated bath, but her distress at the memory was overshadowed by her distress at the idea of having to clean the girl if she actually wet herself.

For her part, Natasha refrained from squirming until the last moment when Maria set her down on her feet. “Off, off,” the girl whimpered, pulling at the snaps that held the crotch of her onsie together. Her pacifier from earlier was nowhere to be found, probably having fallen from her mouth during their rushed journey to the potty.

Trying not to over analyze what she was about to do, Maria got down to her knees and pulled at the tape on the sides of the girl’s newly exposed diaper, deftly catching it as it fell from between her legs. It wasn’t wet, thank god.

Natasha, needing no further prompting now that she was free of the diaper, quickly sat down on the toilet to do her business.

Maria turned her back on the girl as the unmistakable sound of peeing filled the room, and she thankfully spotted a trash bin full of “used” diapers beneath the elongated double sink counter. Heading over to it, she balled up and retaped the one she was holding and tossed it inside.

Despite the fact her hands weren’t technically dirty, Maria turned on the sink and began to soap up and wash them. And when she was done, she washed them a second time, mostly because the sound of the running water covered up the sounds Natasha was making. 

When Maria was certain the girl was finished she chanced a glance behind her, surprised to find that Natasha was already taped up into a fresh diaper and was currently trying to re-attach the snaps between her legs. Drying her hands on a nearby towel, Maria went back over to her, lowering herself to her knees again to help her out. 

Once her outfit was fully snapped shut, Natasha moved on her own to the sink and began to wash her hands, leaving Maria kneeling by herself in the center of the bathroom. 

There were at least a dozen less than comfortable thoughts swirling through her head at the moment and Maria knew she had to push it all away before the evening was ruined, albeit for a completely different reason than the last time.

Natasha was up to something. That much was evident from what had just happened, or almost happened. Whether she was intentionally trying to make Maria uncomfortable, or get some sort of reaction out of her was unclear, but from everything Coulson had said about the Toddler always having a piece of adult Natasha in her head to take care of these things, her near accident just didn’t make any sense. Unless, of course, it was part of some larger plan Maria wasn’t yet privy to.

“‘Ria p’ay?”

Maria blinked a few times, snapping out of her thoughts as she felt a tugging on her pant leg again. Natasha was crawling on the tile floor, pointing back towards the bedroom, obviously wanting to continue from where they left off. 

“Um, not just yet. How about you go play while I’ll make us some dinner? Then we can watch a movie together before bed?” she offered, standing up fully and stepping away towards the door that she knew lead into the hallway.

Natasha seemed less than thrilled with her suggestion but didn’t argue, instead turning and crawling her way back into her bedroom, picking up her dropped pacifier on the way.

“Well this sucks,” Maria grumbled quietly to herself as she exited the bathroom and made her way into the kitchen.

She had actually been enjoying the evening thus far and now her own insecurities and issues were going to ruin everything. Natasha was essentially a Baby and Babies obviously wet their diapers. Just because the girl was “special” and could properly use the toilet despite her age didn’t mean that an accident was part of some grand conspiracy against her.

_It’s not always about you, Maria._

_You’re not that important._

Sighing, Maria momentarily contemplated going and retrieving her beer but quickly decided against it. The _last_ thing she needed was to lower her inhibitions after what had just happened.

Rifling through the cupboards, she eventually found a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese, and after checking to make sure there was unspoiled milk in the fridge she set about cooking them dinner.

*****

Things weren’t as awkward as Maria had feared they’d be when finally she went and retrieved Natasha, carrying the girl into the kitchen and sitting her in her specially made high chair at the breakfast table. She’d already shared quite a few meals with her in the cafeteria at SHIELD, so wasn’t surprised when she handled her spoon with enough dexterity to not get her food all over her face and clothes.

“Is that yummy?” Maria asked, hoping to bring things back to the comfort level they’d had going earlier. Natasha nodded her head and seemed to genuinely be enjoying her bowl of Mac & Cheese. Maria had found her a sippy cup and filled it with apple juice and the girl periodically took a drink from it between mouthfuls of noodles.

“You know, this was one of my favorite foods growing up,” Maria explained, taking another spoonful from her own bowl. “It’s really cheap, and easy enough to make that even a six year old could do it.”

She was lying of course, and the six year old in question was her Little self and not her actual childhood self. Her father would have skinned her alive if she’d ever laid a hand on the fridge, let alone the stove. Her Little self, however, had mastered the art of boiling water. It was the act of carrying that water to and from the stove that she still had trouble with. Thankfully most of her spills occurred while going _to_ the stove and not coming _from_ the stove.

Natasha seemed nonplussed by her story, the girl’s eyes now tracking her own as if she were dissecting her every facial expression. Maria briefly wondered if this was adult Natasha peeking through, or if Little Natasha was just content to listen to her talk.

“I don’t remember much of when I was your age, but when I was around Bobbi’s age I _definitely_ didn’t have as cool a bedroom as you three do.” Maria took a sip of her own apple juice before continuing. “I didn’t have any siblings so had a room all to myself. It was small, but the walls were this pretty light blue color that looked a lot like the sky on a clear, sunny day. I grew up in Chicago so we didn’t have a lot of those - sunny days, I mean.

“I think the family that lived in our apartment before us had a son, and that’s why the walls were painted blue. My father would never have done that for me,” Maria paused for a moment, realizing the can of worms she was liable to open up if she continued on this track.

“Anyway, I didn’t have a fancy bed like you. For most of my childhood I slept on a mattress on the floor. It was nice though, and cozy. Sometimes when my father was asleep I would collect all the pillows and blankets in the house and line them up along the edges of the bed so that it felt like a nest.”

“Baby bird?” Natasha asked, her empty spoon still clutched in her hand despite the fact she had stopped eating. She seemed a lot more interested in Maria’s story now.

“Yeah, like a baby bird’s nest,” Maria confirmed, absently licking the pad of her thumb and then wiping a bit of cheese sauce from the corner of the Toddler’s mouth. Natasha wrinkled her nose at the action but didn’t try and push Maria’s hand away.

“Baby ducky?” Natasha elaborated, setting her spoon down so she could pick up her sippy cup with both hands.

Maria couldn’t help the little intake of breath at the question but she quickly covered it up with an exaggerated cough. Not her smoothest recovery, that’s for certain, but Natasha didn’t seem to notice, or at least didn’t outwardly react like she did. “Yeah, I guess it was more like a baby duck’s nest, since they are on the ground and not in trees.”

Natasha nodded comically at this, her head tilting further and further back as she held her cup to her lips. She was clearly running on empty.

“Hey, how about I make you a bottle and get you situated in your crib? I’ll do a quick clean up here and then we can watch a movie before bedtime? Have you picked one out yet?” Maria asked, already getting to her feet and carrying their mostly empty bowls to the sink. She looked over her shoulder at Natasha to see if she had an answer and the girl simply nodded her head, a large smile spread across her face.

Maria wasn’t sure why, but the girl’s expression didn’t feel quite right to her. Like maybe there was too much adult Natasha evident inside it. Except that train of thought was going down the path she’d already resolved not to go on tonight. If Natasha _was_ playing with her, she’d let the girl do her thing and just hope whatever it was she wanted to achieve was innocent in nature.  

“Okay, do you want to tell me which one or make it a surprise?” Maria asked, walking back over to take Natasha’s empty sippy cup and unlock the tray portion of the girl’s high chair.

“Su’pise!” Natasha exclaimed, kicking her feet joyfully as she was unbuckled from her seat.

Maria had figured as much, but wasn’t too worried about it. The worst case scenario she could think of was that the movie wasn’t age appropriate, in which case she’d simply turn it off and make the girl pick a different one. So Natasha _could_ try to mess with her with the selection, but it didn’t seem likely that she’d succeed.

Before the girl could get down from her chair Maria grabbed a damp washcloth from the sink and began wiping her face and hands. She was pretty clean in comparison to the pizza incident a few weeks ago, though that probably had to do with her own desires not to need a bath. Maria was thankful they at least seemed to be on the same page where that notion was concerned.

“All c’ean!” Natasha clapped her hands together, grinning up at Maria for a moment before reaching out to her.

“That’s right, all clean,” Maria echoed, unable to hide her genuine amusement at the girl’s suddenly bubbly nature. She was definitely more two year old than assassin right now. “Up you go,” she instructed, lifting the girl beneath her armpits and resting her on her hip once again. Her back was starting to hurt from all the carrying, but she figured this would be the last trip before bedtime and so pushed through her discomfort as she made her way down the hallway towards the bedroom.

Navigating the toy minefield like a pro, Maria headed towards the girl’s crib and set her down inside. There was a small LCD screen built into the taller side of the “trunk” and Natasha quickly crawled over to it, tapping her fingers against it as if to turn it on. Or maybe she _was_ turning it on, for all Maria knew. She’d seen actual toddlers wielding iPhones before, so it wasn’t unreasonable that the girl would know how to operate a touch screen.

Leaving her to it, Maria headed back into the kitchen to quickly finish cleaning up their dinner.


	2. Chapter 2

When Maria reappeared a few minutes later she had a half full bottle of apple juice in one hand and a water bottle for herself in the other. Natasha had clearly known how to use her television because some Disney cartoon or other was already being broadcast on the screen. 

“You started without me?” Maria asked, pretending to be hurt as she leant over the edge of the crib and handed Natasha her bottle. The girl was currently stretched out on her back, propped up slightly by a mountain of stuffed animals. She seemed entirely enthralled with the actions taking place on the screen, refusing to break her focus as she accepted the bottle and brought it up to her lips with both hands. 

Maria didn’t recognize the movie at first, until the two little girls on the screen began to build a snowman in the middle of what looked like a ballroom. She’d actually never seen Frozen before. She’d honestly felt it was too hyped up for a kids movie so actively tried avoiding it just to be contrary. It kind of sucked breaking that determination now, though she supposed it didn’t really count as her fault since she hadn’t been the one to choose it.

Not quite sure what to do with herself, Maria awkwardly sat on the uppermost mushroom step. Natasha hadn’t invited her to share her bed and she didn’t want to invade the girl’s space without her permission. Unfortunately, the step wasn’t really wide enough to be sat on properly and she had to keep shifting her feet on the carpet to keep her balance without the possibility of her leg going numb.

Maria’s shuffling seemed to snap Natasha out of her fixation and the girl craned her neck backwards so she could stare upside down at her. She seemed genuinely confused for a moment until the realization hit her and she began to tap the mattress on her right side. Knowing the gesture was as good as a verbal invitation, Maria slid off the step and carefully climbed into the crib. 

“You sure there’s enough room for both of us with all these animals?” she asked, carefully pushing aside some of the larger ones so she could get to the pillows hidden beneath. Natasha made a non-committal noise in response and Maria took the hint to just lay down and stop complaining. 

It was a little awkward getting comfortable since the bed was round and where Maria was laying next to Natasha meant she couldn’t stretch her legs out entirely. She had to pretty much turn on her side and curl up against the girl, which ironically mirrored how the two of them usually cuddled together. Having to rest her head on Natasha’s shoulder made Maria feel really small, and for the first time that night she started to feel her little self peeking out from the metaphorical curtains inside of her head. 

Trying her best to ignore the nagging at the back of her mind, Maria started to actually get into the movie. She’d been a little confused at first but now she understood that the blonde one had some sort of superpower involving ice and snow and it wasn’t a good thing because she was being forced to hide it from everyone, including her sister. But then the sister met a boy and wanted to get married right away, only the superpowered one didn’t think it was a good idea.

And now they were fighting and the blonde one's powers went off and Maria couldn't help gasp as the villagers started calling her a monster and began to chase her out of the town. And now her sister was chasing after her on horseback and Maria nearly leapt out of her skin when she felt a hand suddenly gripping her own. 

Tearing her eyes away from the movie, Maria looked down at where Natasha had entwined her fingers with the hand she had resting across the other girl's stomach. Confusion spread through her, but she didn't try and pull away, instead returning her attention to the movie. She needed to know if the blonde girl was okay and if her sister had found her yet.

She hadn't, and now the superpowered one was walking up a mountain and there was music playing which meant she was going to sing. Maria recognized the melody from having heard it before on commercials and things, but had never really listened to the lyrics before. And as the girl sang about letting go and not holding things back anymore, that’s  _ exactly _ what Maria felt herself doing. She was letting go. 

She was letting go, and she was _ dropping _ .  

It was the fastest drop Maria had ever experienced. One second she was gasping for breath as she clung tightly to Natasha’s hand, and the next she was Little and was in a cage and there was someone she didn’t recognize laying next to her, talking to her. 

Maria yanked her hand away and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Where was she? Why was she in a cage?! Who was the girl that was talking to her? Was she going to hurt her? Did she put her in the cage? Was it even a cage? It didn’t have a top so if she could just climb over the wall…

“Maria, stop, please, calm down!” the girl was pleading with her, but Maria didn’t recognize her despite the fact the other girl obviously knew her name. And that could only mean one thing. This was someone from work, and Maria was going to be in  _ so much trouble! _

Scrambling to her knees, Maria bent herself over the railing as she tried to swing one leg up and over the edge next to her. Only gravity was faster than her clumsy body could move and she ended up falling face first all the way to the floor below.

“Maria stop!” the girl still in the cage was screaming at her now, which only fueled her need to get away. 

Except she’d landed on her face and now everything  _ hurt _ and wait, was that blood? 

Bursting into tears, Maria untangled her aching body and pushed herself up to her feet. She could sense the other girl was climbing down behind her and on instinct began to run. Except the room she was in wasn’t big enough to run very far, which meant she had to hide. If she couldn’t run she had to hide!

To her right she saw a treehouse and quickly started towards it, only to falter in her steps when she remembered she didn’t know how to climb trees! There was a giant truck straight ahead but she wasn’t old enough to drive, and even in her mounting terror she understood that hiding beneath a vehicle was dangerous. 

“Maria please! It’s okay, you’re safe!” 

Only she knew she wasn’t, so that meant the girl chasing her was lying and was probably one of the bad guys. She had to hide! 

In between the treehouse and the truck was a door and Maria sprinted towards it. She didn’t know if it was an outside door or a closet, but it didn’t matter because she couldn’t stay in this room, not with the girl that wanted to hurt her. 

“No! Maria No! Don’t go in there! Maria STOP!”

Maria couldn’t stop, she couldn’t! She was in so much trouble! She was going to be caught and then the bad guys were going to hurt her! She tugged at the door handle, struggling to pull it open because it weighed a lot more than she remembered most doors weighing. But that was okay because she’d gotten it open and it was dark inside and she could definitely hide in here!

Except the moment she took a step into the room an alarm started to go off right above her head and the room lit up in a harsh, red glow. Oh no! Oh no! Was the room booby trapped? Was she going to die?! Maria’s terror skyrocketed at the thought, and to make matters even  _ worse  _ she felt her pants growing warm and wet as her bladder released. 

She was going to  _ die _ and she’d just wet herself!

Wailing at the top of her lungs, Maria collapsed to the ground as her body finally gave out. The alarm was still screaming above her and the bad person was standing in the doorway now, blocking her only method of escape. 

If she couldn’t run she had to hide! 

With her last bit of strength, Maria began to drag herself towards the darkest corner of the room. There was something large, dark, and flat that sat far enough off the floor she was able to squeeze herself beneath it, but only just. It was cramped and dirty and uncomfortable but Maria was in so much pain and was so very scared that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter she was sniveling and shaking and covered in urine. 

She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was in so much trouble!

_ Bad Maria! Bad! Bad! Bad! _

“I swear to you Clint, I’m fine! Maria opened the door by accident. No, she’s not here with me, the alarm freaked her out. She’s probably in the other room looking for a weapon. Yes, I’m telling you the truth. It’s me, you can hear it’s me. Please Clint, just give me the code. Yes, I promise. Thank you. I’ll see you when you get back.”

Maria didn’t know who the girl was talking to because they were alone in the room, but the alarm suddenly stopped blaring and that had to be a good thing, right? 

Or maybe not, because the lights in the room quickly shifted from red to a harsh white and the shadows Maria had hoped would conceal her were now no longer there. She whimpered and shuffled another inch or two beneath her hiding spot until the top of her head was pressed against the wall and she had no where further to go. 

“Christ, Maria. I am  _ so sorry _ .”

Every time the girl said her name it made Maria’s heart beat a little bit faster. No one was supposed to know about her, that was the most important rule of all. 

“I didn’t think you would panic like this.  _ Fuck _ , I mean shit, I mean -  _ dammit.”  _

Maria steeled herself as she heard the girl walk towards her hiding space, knowing she was about to be pulled out by her legs. Only, instead of a hand on her ankle there was simply the sound of a mattress squishing above her. In the darkness she hadn’t realized she’d been hiding under a bed. 

“Maria, I don’t know how much you’re able to understand right now, but I need you to listen to me. You’re safe in here. That’s actually the name of this room - The Safe Room. And even though it was really scary at first with the alarms and the lights, I promise you, no one can hurt you in here. Not even me.

“So if you want me to leave you alone for a while so you can calm down, just say so. Or tap your hand on the floor if you can’t talk. I promise I won’t lock you in, and you can come out whenever you’re ready to, alright?”

It wasn’t alright. As terrified as Maria was of the girl, she was even  _ more _ afraid of being trapped alone in a room with an alarm, so she kept quiet and still. 

It was silent for a few moments, and then the girl began talking again. 

“I know you don’t recognize me right now, but I’m actually a friend of yours. We work together at SHIELD. I’m also a Little, like you.”

Maria couldn’t stop herself from whimpering at the term. “I’m not Little...I’m Big. Big Maria,” she told the stranger sitting above her. If their adult selves really did work together then she had to be Big.

“Are you sure about that? I don’t know any Big’s that hide underneath furniture when they’re scared, but I know a lot of Littles who do. In fact, I myself have hidden where you are right now on a few separate occasions, though not in a very long time. I bet it’s really dusty under there now, huh?”

It  _ was _ dusty, and smelly, and Maria really didn’t want to be using someone else’s hiding spot, but she wasn’t about to crawl out and find somewhere else either. The other girl would just have to share for a while. 

The girl stayed quiet for few minutes, the only sound in the room being the squeak of the mattress as she shifted above her as well as Maria’s own hiccoughed sobs. When finally she began to talk again, she sounded a lot sadder and younger than before. 

“When I was your age I lived in this place called the Red Room. It was kind of like a school, but instead of just teaching us to read and write they also taught us a lot of bad things. Like how to fight, and steal. How to hurt people. I was just a kid so I had to do what the adults said or they would hurt me. Or have the other kids hurt me.

“It was a very bad place and I didn’t like being there, but I did have something really special. I had a best friend. Her name was Katya, and she was six years old just like me. She wasn’t as good at the bad things as I was, but she was smart and had a really pretty smile. Her hair was also really long and dark. Kind of like yours, but she always kept it down on her shoulders, even when we had to fight each other.

“And even though The Red Room was really big, it didn’t have enough beds for all of the girls our age so Katya and I got to share one. She was my best friend, and at night she was my secret keeper. Do you know what a secret keeper is, Maria?”

Maria had never heard the term before, but thought she maybe knew what it was just from the name. She stayed quiet however. If the girl above her wanted to keep talking, it at least meant she wasn’t trying to hurt her. 

“A secret keeper is someone you share all of your deepest, darkest, secrets with. The things you could never tell anyone else because maybe you think they wouldn’t understand, or are afraid they might get mad at you. Things that maybe you’re not supposed to tell others, but it’s okay because a secret keeper won’t get you in trouble.

Katya was my secret keeper, and I was hers. Do you have a secret keeper, Maria? Someone you can tell all your secrets to? Maybe someone who already knows that you’ve been lying about being Big?”

Maria didn’t have anyone like that. She didn’t have someone like Katya; a friend she could talk to about the things she wasn’t supposed to talk about. In reality, Maria didn’t have any friends at all. 

“I was thinking, if you don’t have anyone else, that maybe  _ I _ could be your secret keeper? Seeing as I already know your biggest secret. And it would mean I could never, ever,  _ ever _ tell anyone else, cross my heart and hope to die.”

Maria really wasn't sure what to say to the girl's suggestion. If she did say yes and let her be her secret keeper, did that mean she wouldn't have to worry about getting in trouble for not being Big? As unsure as she was about agreeing to anything, she really,  _ really _ didn't want to get in trouble for letting someone find out about her. 

“Okay,” Maria answered tentatively, turning her head to the side so she could wipe at her face. Her tears had lessened a little but her nose was still sticky with blood.

“Really? Thank you, Maria. Thank you for trusting me. I’m really honored. And I promise to be the best secret keeper  _ ever _ . No one is going to find out about your being Little, alright?”

Maria nodded her head but didn’t speak. 

“Alright, well, do you think maybe you’d feel comfortable coming out from under there now? I can help you get cleaned up and I’m sure Bobbi won’t notice if you borrow some of her clothes. She has some really cool pajamas that make her look like one of those talking robot cars. Or maybe something of Clint’s, even if they’ll be a bit big. Do you like Ninja Turtles?”

Maria did like Ninja Turtles, but she didn’t want to wear boys clothes. She really didn’t want to wear anyone else’s clothes at all, but staying wet was even less appealing. She was itchy and starting to smell really, really bad. Ignoring her still lingering fear and doubt, Maria bit the inside of her cheek and slowly began to shuffle herself backwards out from under the bed. 

“There you are sweetie,” the girl cooed as Maria slowly appeared from beneath the bed. It sent chills down her spine while simultaneously making her chest feel all tight and warm. This was a stranger, but also her new secret keeper, so she shouldn’t be afraid of her, even if she still sort of was.

“Hi,” Maria whispered as she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, lifting her head to look at the girl for the first time. She vaguely remembered her red hair from when she’d woken up in the cage, but now she could see that it was really, _ really  _ red. Like Ariel from The Little Mermaid red. It was really pretty and Maria wanted to tell her so but she didn’t know how.

“Hi,” the girl answered back, not approaching Maria but instead sliding off the bed and onto her knees on the floor. Maria didn’t have to crane her neck now to look at her. “My names Natasha, but you can call me Nat or Aunt Nat if you like.”

Maria furrowed her brows in confusion at the suggestion. The girl was wearing Baby clothes and what looked like a diaper underneath them. Aunt’s were Big and didn’t wear those things. “You’re Little,” she half explained, half asked. “You have a diaper, so you’re littler than me.”

Nat smiled at her and nodded her head. “Yes, I  _ am  _ Little. I’m just not Little right now. I was before, when you were asleep and your adult self was awake. We were watching a movie together, do you remember any of that?”

Maria shook her head and sat back on her ankles, wincing as her wet clothes felt even more uncomfortable in this position. “Are you a Baby?” she asked, having never seen or heard of a Little who wore diapers before. Not that she’d seen or heard of very many Littles in  _ general _ , but still.

Nat laughed at her question and nodded her head again. “I’m actually more of a Toddler than a Baby. I’m this many years old.” She held up her pointer and middle finger for Maria to count. 

Maria didn’t really know the difference between a Toddler and a Baby, but accepted that Nat wouldn’t lie about something like this. Besides, she  _ couldn’t _ lie to her. Secret keepers had to tell the truth or they wouldn’t really be secrets, right? 

“That’s really little,” Maria agreed, holding up her own hands in front of her. She spread out all the fingers on her right hand, including her thumb, and then made an almost fist with her left hand, with only her pointer finger sticking up straight. “I’m this many,” she explained, quickly counting off each of her fingers in her head to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake.

“Wow, six years old is a _ lot _ older than I am. You must know how to do a lot of neat things, huh?” Nat asked, sounding like she was genuinely impressed with Maria’s age. It made Maria feel strange and tingly in her stomach because she’d always thought she was too little to do much of anything. 

“Not really,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders shyly. She placed her hands on her thighs but then quickly pulled them away when she remembered how wet she was. 

“Oh? Well I’m sure there’s a  _ ton  _ of things you know how to do, and maybe you just can’t think of them right now because everything’s still a little scary and uncomfortable.” 

Maria nodded her head at this. She  _ was _ still a little scared, and was even more uncomfortable than when she had been under the bed. Her pants were really cold and smelly and were sticking to her in awkward places. She felt her face heat up suddenly at the thought that Nat might be able to smell her.

“It’s okay honey, you don’t have to be embarrassed. I’m two, I’ve had plenty of accidents before. That’s why I wear these now.” Nat pointed to the diaper she was wearing, but it only made Maria blush even harder. She didn’t want to be compared to a Baby because six year olds were big girls and weren’t supposed to have accidents.

“Aw, Maria, it’s okay. Please, you don’t have to cry.”

Maria covered her face with her arms as she felt tears beginning to pool in the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. Especially not in front of a Baby. 

“Shhh, sweetheart, it’s alright, really. How about we go get you cleaned up and into something comfy and warm, okay? You'll feel better then, I promise.”

Maria flinched when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, but relaxed when the hand simply moved to begin rubbing up and down her back. It felt nice, kind of like a one sided hug that moved around a lot. After a few moments she lowered her arms back down to her sides. 

“That’s it sweetie, you’re doing so good,” Nat reassured, though Maria didn’t think she was doing good at all. She felt so small and sad and uncomfortable, and even if her new secret keeper hadn’t been mean to her yet, she still wished she was back home by herself so she could curl up in her bed and go to sleep.

“Do you think you’ll be able to walk all the way to the bathroom with me? I’m not sure I’m strong enough to carry you there. Though my big brother Clint has a wagon in the backyard I might be able to bring in here if you don’t think you can walk.”

Maria sniffled as she nodded her head. She was a big girl, she could walk to the bathroom by herself. “I can walk,” she confirmed. 

As Maria shuffled her legs beneath her, Nat’s hand moved from her back to her upper arm, gripping gently and helping her to stand up. Once she was on her feet, the hand drifted again to her back, but didn’t rub this time. 

“Okay sweetheart, it’s this way.” Nat’s hand pressed gently into Maria’s back, urging her forward and back into the bedroom she’d so recently fled from. It didn’t seem so scary now that she was calmer, although the giant truck still made her a little nervous. Why would Nat have a truck in her bedroom? 

“That belongs to my older sister, Bobbi. It’s a bed, even if it doesn’t look like it. She sleeps on top of the big boxy part,” Nat explained, almost as if she were able to read Maria’s mind. Or maybe she just noticed how she was staring at it as they walked by. 

“Trucks are dumb,” Maria responded back, though she tensed a little when she realized her comment might hurt Nat’s older sister’s feelings. “Sorry.”

Nat just laughed and shook her head, steering Maria away from the truck and towards the opposite end of the room. “Don’t be sorry, I happen to agree with you. Bobbi really likes Transformers, so it’s more robot trucks than regular trucks. And don’t worry, I won’t tell her you said that.”

“Still dumb,” Maria insisted, a little more confidently now that she knew Nat wouldn’t tell on her. Maybe having a secret keeper wasn’t so bad. 

As they neared the bathroom door, Maria kept her eyes on the carpet and not on the cage bed they had to pass. She remembered it from earlier and didn’t want to think about how afraid she’d been waking up inside of it. She understood it probably belonged to Nat, so she wasn’t going to tell her how she really felt about it. That was a secret she was going to keep to herself. 

“Wow, your bathroom is really big,” Maria marvelled as they crossed the threshold into the ensuite. It was bigger than any bathroom she had ever seen before, and was probably bigger than her own bedroom at home. She wouldn’t want to sleep in here though because it was much too white and the lights were really bright and hurt her eyes.

“Your adult self said the same thing,” Nat mused, leading Maria to stand in the middle of the open expanse. Maria’s socks were soggy with urine and felt uncomfortably squishy on the tile. 

Nat removed her hand from Maria’s back and came around to stand in front of her now. “Do you want my help getting you out of these wet clothes?” She asked and Maria's first instinct was to say no. She was a big girl and could get undressed and cleaned up on her own. Except she felt really small right now and kind of like she wanted to just sit down and cry.

“Okay, how about we do this, I'll help you get out of these clothes and then give you a nice big, soapy washcloth that you can clean yourself with. And while you do that, I can go find you some not dumb pajamas to wear. I might even have something of mine I can give you.”

Maria was a little surprised when she realized Nat had begun undressing her while she talked. She obediently lifted first her right foot and then her left foot as Nat pulled off her socks and then helped her out of her jeans and underwear. She whimpered a little at being exposed but Nat wasn't looking at her and was instead rolling up her wet clothes into a ball that she then carried over to the sink. 

“I'm going to leave these here to be cleaned later. You don't have to worry about them. You just focus on getting yourself nice and clean with this, and then dried with this, and I'll be back in a few minutes. Are you okay if I leave you in here by yourself for a few minutes?” 

Maria watched as Nat placed a wet and soapy washcloth on the counter next to a fluffy, yellow towel. The girl hadn't turned around to look at her yet so she relaxed a bit more in her nakedness. 

“I'm going to need you to respond out loud, Maria. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable by staying, but I also don’t want to leave you alone if you’d rather I stayed.”

“I’m okay by myself,” Maria answered after a few moments of working up the courage to speak again. She was feeling a little overwhelmed by all the choices and just wanted to be clean and dry already. Plus, she felt safer in the bathroom than in the bedroom. There wasn’t anything in the bathroom that could hurt her.

“Alright, hon. I’ll knock before I come back in, but if you need me before then just call my name or come get me.” Nat didn’t wait for Maria to respond again before exiting the bathroom through the same door they had entered.

Maria waited until Nat closed the door behind her before crossing over to the sink and picking up the washcloth. It was really big, like the towels you normally find in the kitchen, but it had pictures of ninja turtles on it so Maria knew it was okay to clean herself with. 

Even though she hadn’t had an accident in a very long time, Maria still remembered how to wipe herself down properly so that she wouldn’t be sticky later. She even bent over and brought the washcloth between each of her toes before wiping at the bottoms of her feet. It made the tile floor a little slippery but she wanted to be thorough. 

Once she was done she placed the washcloth in the sink on top of her clothes and picked up the towel, gasping when she opened it up and saw that there were little satin ducks sewn along the bottom edge. Maria ran her finger over the silky texture, following the contour of the largest duck all the way around. 

She really liked the towel and felt bad getting it dirty, but she didn’t know when Nat would return and wanted to make sure she was done before then. Turning the towel around so the ducks were on the other side, she went about drying herself off. Once she was finished she wrapped it around her waist like a giant, yellow, duck covered skirt.

“Knock knock.” 

Maria gripped the edges of the towel tightly as Nat slowly pushed the door open, peeking her head in when Maria didn’t protest her arrival. 

“All cleaned, I see,” Nat smiled at Maria as she fully entered the bathroom, a bundle of clothes in her arms. Crossing to the counter, Nat set the items on top and then pulled open a drawer and withdrew another washcloth, wetting it in the sink. “Except your little Rudolph nose. Did you forget about your tumble?”

Maria  _ had _ forgotten about her fall and instinctively reached up and pressed her fingertips to her sore, sticky nose. 

“Here, let me help you so you don’t get your hands all dirty again,” Nat offered, first taking Maria’s hand and wiping down her newly stained digits before gently bringing the washcloth up to her face. Maria whimpered at the tenderness of both the touch and of her nose. “Doesn’t look like it’s broken, just a little banged up. Do you get a lot of bloody noses?”

Maria nodded her head because she did bleed a lot from there. She didn’t add that it was because she was super clumsy and was always falling on her face. Nat didn’t have to know she was bad at walking while holding things, especially food. It was really embarrassing. Baby Nat could probably walk better than her.

“Alright, there we go. Officially all clean.” Nat gave her a reassuring smile and Maria tried to do the same, but she was honestly feeling so tired right now and just wanted to lay down for a nap. 

“I found you some underwear and pajamas Bobbi bought for herself but never used. She was  _ really _ into Minnie Mouse for a while, but then she finally got to meet her a few months ago and got scared, and now she doesn't like her anymore.” 

Maria perked up a little at the story. From what Nat had said about her big sister, she wouldn’t have imagined she’d be scared of Minnie Mouse. Transformers were  _ waaaaaay _ scarier than Mickey and Minnie. “She got scared?”

Nat nodded her head, her mouth turning up into a grin. “She did. She ran away crying when Minnie tried to give her a hug. And Bobbi’s eight, so she’s even bigger than you. But it’s okay to be afraid sometimes, especially when things are new and scary.”

“I’m not scared,” Maria felt she had to explain, since she wasn’t really scared anymore. She was just tired. 

“Well I’m really glad to hear that. But you do look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet, so let’s get you dressed and then I have a surprise for you back in the Safe Room.” Nat was already going through the clothes she’d brought until she found a pair of underwear and showed them to Maria. “You think you can get these on by yourself? I’ll keep my back turned so you can have some privacy.”

Maria looked at the underwear with the picture of Minnie Mouse on the front and nodded her head, taking them from Nat who then obediently turned around. She undid the towel around her waist and let it drop to the floor, then carefully stepped one foot and then the other into the underwear and pulled them up. They were a little big but the elastic on the top kept them in place.

While she had been doing that, Nat had picked up the rest of the clothes and Maria could see that there were a pair of shorts and a tank top, both with images of Minnie Mouse as well. The shorts were also pink and Maria wrinkled her nose at that. She didn’t like pink all that much.

“I’m turning back around now,” Nat spoke as she slowly did just that, and Maria felt a little silly standing there in Minnie Mouse underwear and her plain adult t-shirt. But maybe not as silly as she knew she would feel once she put the rest of it on.

Nat seemed to notice her displeasure at the pajamas and looked apologetic at least. “I know it’s not the nicest thing to wear, but that’s why I have a surprise for you in the Safe Room.”

Maria was intrigued at the idea of a surprise, and so didn’t protest when Nat helped her into the ugly pink shorts and then helped her out of her shirt and bra and into the tank top. At least the tank top wasn’t pink. 

“You’re doing so good, Maria. You’re such a big, brave girl,” Nat told her and even though Maria didn’t think that was true, she didn’t say anything. She was tired and wanted to see what the surprise was before she fell asleep. She just hoped it wasn’t more Minnie Mouse clothes.

*****

It wasn’t more Minnie Mouse clothes. In fact, it wasn’t even clothes at all. It was a nest! 

As Nat lead Maria back into the Safe Room, the first thing she noticed was that the mattress had been pushed off the bed and onto the floor, and all around the edges were piled various blankets and pillows. There were even a few stuffed animals thrown in, filling out any gaps between the pillows.

Maria was speechless, or even more speechless than she normally was. It was a nest, but how did Nat know about nests? Nests were her very special thing that she’d never shared with anyone, and it both thrilled and terrified her that someone else apparently knew this about her. 

“How?” she managed to ask, stepping over the ridge of pillows at the foot of the bed, climbing inside and lowering herself to her knees. The mattress was smaller than the one she had at home, but that just made the nest feel more cozy and secure. She sniffled and wiped at her cheeks as her emotions started to overwhelm her again.

“Oh honey, I forgot that you don’t remember. You told me about nests during dinner. Well, your adult self told my Little self, and I just thought maybe you’d feel more comfortable sleeping here like this tonight.” Nat was hanging back in the doorway of the Safe Room, almost like she were afraid to come in and spook Maria further.

Maria rubbed at her cheeks with her palms as she tried to control her breathing. Nat was her secret keeper, so maybe that extended to her adult self as well? So there was no reason to get upset just because she couldn’t remember what her other self had told her. “‘kay,” she whispered, moving so she was sitting down fully now and facing the other girl. 

“I uh, I kind of have one more surprise. But I need to go put it on, so I’ll be back in a minute, okay? I’m not leaving the bedroom, and you can holler if you need me before I get back.”

Maria watched in confusion as Nat turned and walked to the right, out of her line of sight. What did she mean by having to ‘put on’ her surprise? She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her arms around them. Even though this was the Safe Room, she suddenly didn’t feel so safe. The nest helped though. Bad things weren’t allowed to happen in nests.

She didn’t have to wait long, however, because suddenly a giant blue and white owl jumped into view in the doorway. “Ta-da!” 

Maria’s first instinct was to scream, but she quickly recognized Nat’s voice and calmed down, even if just slightly. She watched as Nat spread her legs and arms wide as she displayed the gigantic, baggy costume she was wearing. It looked like a giant romper with a hood that had an owls face on it. The arms also had fabric that gave the impression of feathered wings. When Nat turned around in a circle, Maria could see a bird’s tail hanging off the back. 

“I’m an owl! See? Whoooo Whoooo!” Nat flapped her arms and stomped her feet as she did what looked to Maria like an owl’s version of the “I have to go to the potty” dance. Despite her lingering nervousness at the unexpected sight, Maria found herself giggling as Nat began to shake her backside so the feathered tail flopped back and forth like a dog wagging its tail.

After a few minutes of impromptu dancing, Nat finally pushed back the hood and grinned cheekily at Maria. “You’re my secret keeper too, so I’m trusting you not to tell anyone about this, ever,” she laughed as she brushed some hair from her eyes. The hood had messed up her pigtails even more than they already were. One was now so low on the back of her head it almost looked like it was coming out of her neck, and Maria found herself giggling even harder at the funny image.

Nat placed her hands on her hips, which looked really funny with the feathers under her arms. “I’m glad you’re laughing now, because I have one for you,” she said cryptically, disappearing from view for a moment before reappearing with a gigantic mass of yellow and white fabric. It took Nat a moment to unjumble it, but when she held it up for Maria to see, it caused her to gasp out loud. 

It was a duck!

Before Maria could think better of it, she was already on her feet and hopping over the edge of the nest, reaching for the duck costume. “Is this for me? I can wear this?” she asked, her eyes as wide as saucers as Nat nodded and handed it to her. 

“Of course you can! This one is normally mine, and the owl one is Bobbi’s, but I know you like ducks and thought you’d like to wear it in the nest tonight. It  _ is _ a duck’s nest after all, since ducks sleep on the ground,” Nat explained as she helped unsnap the front of the duck costume so Maria could climb inside.

Maria was barely paying attention to Nat’s words as she focused on getting her feet through the holes without falling over. The costume didn’t have normal legs like pants did, and instead were super baggy so it looked like her legs were only a foot long. It felt funny to walk in it, like she might trip if she weren’t careful. So she made sure to be really careful because she didn’t want to fall and accidentally get blood on the costume. Nat might never let her wear it again if she got it dirty.

“Aw, look at you! You make the cutest little duckling ever!” Nat exclaimed as she finished snapping Maria up and then tugged the hood up over her head. There was an orange duckbill that flopped over Maria’s face, making it a little hard to see. She tried pushing the hood up a little but it just flopped back down and so she gave up. She would just have to be  _ reaaaally _ careful walking.

“Come on, Bobbi has a giant mirror on the back of her truck!” Nat was still smiling happily at her so when she grabbed Maria’s hand and began to tug her into the bedroom, Maria just held on tight and did her best not to trip. 

When they rounded the back of the giant truck, Nat pushed open one of the two doors, exposing a nearly floor length mirror on the back side of it. Maria had to put her hand on top of the hood to hold the duckbill out of her eyes so she could see herself, and once she did she couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

She looked like a duck! A giant, yellow and white, human shaped duck!

“I wish I knew where my siblings hid all my kiddie music because I know there's some really cute songs about ducks. Do you know any songs about ducks, Maria?” Nat asked. She’d pulled her hood back on and was flapping her arms again, almost like she wanted to dance once more but didn’t want to make Maria uncomfortable.

Maria didn’t know how to dance, and she didn’t know any songs about ducks either, but she  _ did  _ know how to waddle like one. She shook her head at the question, but then leant over a little so her backside was sticking out and she began to twist her hips left and right in an exaggerated fashion. She also bent her arms at her elbows and flapped them up and down as she watched herself waddle in the mirror.

“Oh Maria, you are too precious for words!” Nat exclaimed, laughing happily. Even though she was dressed like an owl, she began to copy Maria’s movements and the two of them waddled around each other in a circle, quacking and hooting and laughing, until finally Maria had to stop because she was so out of breath she was giggling so hard.

Nat was also laughing really hard and she tried to fan herself with the feathers beneath her arm, but it didn’t seem to work very well and ended up just making them both laugh even  _ harder _ , until Maria thought she might actually cry. 

“Wooo, I don’t think I've laughed this much in a long time!” Nat explained between giggles. Her face was all red and when Maria looked in the mirror she could see that hers was red too. “Alright you silly duckling, let’s go back to the nest and lay down before we both fall down!”

In all her excitement about the costume, Maria had forgotten how tired she was, and now that her laughter and adrenaline was dying down, she knew that Nat was right. She really, really,  _ really _ needed a nap.

Holding onto Nat’s hand once more, Maria followed her friend back into the Safe Room, the two of them climbing into the nest this time and not just Maria. The duck costume was a little hot but Maria didn’t want to take it off yet and so curled up amongst the blankets but didn’t pull one over herself. 

“Is it okay if I lay down next to you? I know I'm not Little right now, but I missed my nap from earlier, and I'm kinda sleepy too,” Nat asked, looking and sounding a little hesitant, like Maria might actually say no. 

Maria nodded her head and patted the mattress next to her, smiling when Nat happily flopped down onto her back and then curled onto her side so they were facing each other. She still had her owl hood on so Maria laughed as she stared at the giant black owl eyes a few inches from her face. 

“You think you'll be able to fall asleep?” Nat asked, reaching up and pushing her hood back so she could actually see Maria's typically non verbal answer. Maria didn't disappoint and nodded her head, yawning as her tiredness finally started to get the best of her. 

“Alright then. Goodnight Maria, it was really nice meeting you and playing with you. I hope we get to do it again sometime,” Nat told her as she snuggled into the pillow they were both laying on.

Maria smiled at that and nodded her head once more. “Goodnight, Aunt Nat,” she whispered, before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to actually redo the third chapter instead of just not redoing it and leaving it as two chapters. I'm sorry I'm so fickle guys. :(
> 
> For those that had no clue I deleted it, it was because I didn't like the safe room gassing thing. I've changed it to be much more like what my original idea was. 
> 
> I also want to warn that this chapter kind of touches on some less than savory missions that SHIELD has Natasha do, and want to emphasize that there's never any sex in them. Ever. That being said, the same isn't necessarily true for what the Red Room had her do (a fact that isn't covered in this fic, but may come up in a future one).

The first thing Maria noticed when she woke up was that she was hot. Hot, and sweaty, and wearing some strange, restrictive garment. Groaning, she brought a hand up to her face, wincing as she made contact with her sensitive nose. “The fuck?” she murmured sleepily, opening her eyes to see a set of cartoon black ones staring back at her.

And that’s when it all came rushing back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whimpered, her voice growing louder and more desperate as pushed herself into a sitting position. How could this have happened? How did Nat know about her? Did other people know about her? What was going to happen now?

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck._

“If you’re gonna bolt, can you at least take the duck costume off first? It really is one of my favorites,” Nat asked almost casually as she pushed the owl hood back off her face so she could look up at Maria.

She seemed much too calm considering the chaos she had caused the night before and it pissed Maria the hell off. Who the _fuck_ did she think she was, making her drop like that? Even if she hadn’t been lying about her status, what the other girl had done was… was...

“Jesus, Maria. You look like you’re about to blow a gasket,” Nat continued when Maria didn’t respond. “I’m serious, your face just got all red. If this were a cartoon there’d be steam coming out of your ears.”

Maria watched in growing rage as Nat actually had the audacity to smirk at her. “If this were a cartoon, I could push a button and drop an anvil on your face!” she lashed back, scooting as far across the nest as she could from Nat. Once she was a safe distance away she began to unsnap the closures on the duck costume, only to frown at the Minnie Mouse pajamas she wore underneath.

“Where the _fuck_ are my clothes?” she demanded, rubbing both hands over her face as she tried to remember the exact order of events the night before. She’d wet herself. She couldn’t believe it. She’d pissed her goddamn fucking pants! The last time she’d had an accident she was _actually_ six!

“Your clothes are still in a pile in the sink. I can find you some of Bobbi’s adult things so you don’t have to drive home in that,” Nat offered, watching Maria from where she still lay at the head of the nest. Despite her words, she didn’t appear at all willing to get up just yet, something that pissed Maria off even more. How dare she look so relaxed and comfortable after what she’d just done!

“You did this on purpose, didn’t you? You set all of this up because you _wanted_ me to drop. You somehow already knew about my being Little, and instead of just asking me about it, you treated last night like a mission. _Fuck_ , I wouldn’t be surprised if the mission started a month ago. Is that why you requested me as your handler? So you could ‘out’ me in this grand, spectacular fashion?” Maria gestured around her, at the room they were in and at the costumes they were wearing.

Nat finally sat up as well but didn't start taking her owl suit off just yet. “It wasn’t about ‘outing’ you, Maria, it was about helping you. But yes, it was on purpose. I thought maybe if I could get you to drop so we were _both_ Little, you’d see that there wasn’t any reason to keep your status a secret. At least not from me. I didn’t think you’d panic like you did. I mean, it was a little over the top, even for a six year old.”

“Over the top!?” Maria shouted back in still growing rage. “You dropped me against my will! Don’t you understand the gravity of doing that to someone? It’s psychological rape, Natasha. You can be thrown in jail for doing that. Or worse, if SHIELD finds out.”

Nat just scoffed at this and rolled her eyes. “Well it’s a good thing we’re secret keepers then, so no one goes to jail for rape, or for lying about their status on SHIELD government forms.” Her voice was cold now, and Maria felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up at the icy look in the other girl’s eyes.

Still, she knew she wasn’t in the wrong here. Even if Nat told Fury about her status, the worst that would happen was she’d be stripped of her Deputy Director position and possibly demoted a level or two. SHIELD couldn’t fire her for being Little, there were anti-discrimination laws against that. And technically she’d never filled out any SHIELD forms that had asked her status. She’d been fast tracked into the organization and all of that had been taken care of for her.

“Good thing then. Oh, by the way, what ever happened to Katya? Your former secret keeper? I assume she's dead. I know enough about the Red Room to know that most girls don’t make it out of there alive.” It was a low blow, but Maria felt Nat deserved it after everything she’d done to her.

Nat’s face fell at the mention of her former best friend. “You’re right, Katya _is_ dead. And to save you the trouble of asking, yes, I’m the one that killed her. Stabbed her right in the chest while she cried and begged for her life.” Nat placed her balled up fist over her own chest, right in the middle of a bunch of spots on the owl costume. It was also right over her heart.

“Except she didn’t die right away. The knife they had given me for the task was dull, and I hadn’t perfected my aim yet. I was only seven, and they didn’t start teaching us about kill shots until we were eight. So poor Katya, she ended up bleeding out for hours while still handcuffed next to me on our bed.” Nat moved the fist from her chest as her voice wavered a little.

Maria was absolutely horrified. She had suspected that maybe Nat was to blame for Katya’s death, but not like this. Not while she was still so young. “But why? Why did you kill her? Did they make you do it?” she asked, her anger ebbing for a moment at this sudden revelation. Not that it excused what Nat had done to her, but she was only human and couldn’t help but have sympathy for someone made to kill their best friend when they were only kids.

Nat seemed a bit startled at the question but then quickly shook her head, laughing bitterly. “It was a test, Maria. One of the Red Room’s spontaneous, middle of the night tests. They gave each of us a knife and said one of us had to to kill the other one. Katya hesitated, I didn’t. I told you last night she wasn’t as good at the ‘bad stuff’ as I was. She was a much better friend though. And a better secret keeper too, since everything I’d told her ended up being buried along with her.”

Maria sat there in stunned silence for half a moment before responding, “Jesus Christ, Nat, I’m so sorry. If I had known I wouldn’t have brought-”

“Oh, don’t give me that. You would have taken that dirty shot at me whether you knew or not. I can read you like an open book, Maria. It’s one of the ‘bad things’ they taught us how to do. In between killing your best friend and psychologically raping your handler, of course,” Nat snapped at her angrily. The sadness that had been present during her story was long gone now.

Maria watched as Nat began to pull at the snaps of her owl costume, eventually undoing it enough that she could squirm her way out of the opening. Rising to her feet, the girl climbed out of the nest but didn’t exit the room, instead sitting on the edge of the metal platform the mattress normally rested upon.

Nat didn’t say anything for a good long minute, and Maria started to wonder if she should just get up and leave, Minnie Mouse pajamas be damned. She was still rightfully pissed however, and wanted to finish hashing this out before she left. Eventually, Nat gathered up her words and began to speak again. “Do you know what this room is for? Why it’s called the Safe Room?”

That wasn’t what Maria had been expecting and she shook her head. She couldn’t deny being curious about the rooms origin and use, particularly the alarm that had sounded as soon as she’d opened the door. “You come in here when you want to feel safe? Like a panic room, maybe?” she asked, throwing out her best guess. The room was decked out like a prison cell, so she wasn’t sure how safe it actually made Natasha feel to be inside of it.

“Yeah, that’s what one would think, but no. This isn’t a safe room _for_ me, it’s a safe room _from_ me. If I start to feel myself slipping, like I can’t control it anymore, I lock myself in here. It’s a precautionary measure, so I don’t hurt Clint and Bobbi,” Nat explained, swinging her legs beneath her, her heels just scraping across the floor as she talked. “I’ve done some horrible things in my past, Maria. Things i’ll never be able to make up for.”

“Yeah, but you were a kid, Natasha. You were brainwashed into doing those things; into killing your friends. What’s that got to do with now? With Barton and Morse?” Maria responded. She thought Nat still looked angry, but a simmering sort of anger now instead of explosive.

Nat just sighed and began pulling at the plastic on the edges of the diaper that peeked through the leg holes of the onesie she still wore. It was incredibly disconcerting having a conversation with an adult in Toddler clothing, but Maria kept that thought to herself as she waited for Nat to answer.

Finally, she did. “A few years ago, a couple of weeks after we moved in together, I dropped during sex and nearly killed Bobbi. Choked her between my thighs until she turned blue. If Clint hadn't come out of the bathroom when he did and hit me over the head with a lamp…” she trailed off, but it wasn't hard to imagine what the rest of that sentence would have been.

Only that didn't make any sense. Maria understood the trauma of dropping into a Little headspace during sex, having had it happen to her the one and only time she'd ever attempted it, but to connect that experience with the attempted murder of a loved one? Something wasn't right with her story. “Two year olds don't know martial arts, Nat. Why would your Little self have done that? How would she even know _how_ to do that?”

“The same way she knows how to gut a man, or fire a gun, or any of the other skill sets I'm notorious for. You really think it's _me_ they send out on Cookie Jar missions?” Nat explained, which only confused Maria even more. She may have been the Deputy Director, but that didn't mean she knew everything about every type of mission SHIELD ran. She'd heard the term ‘Cookie Jar’ thrown around before, but had never gone through the steps of finding out what it entailed.

“You have your ‘I have no idea what you're saying, but don't want you to know that’ face on,” Nat commented, the corner of her lip turning up in a slight smirk. “Cookie Jar is the term SHIELD uses for a Honeypot mission that requires a Little to do the seducing.”

It took Maria a full five seconds to actually understand what Nat was implying, and when she did it felt like her entire world had dropped out beneath her. There was no way. There was no way Fury would send a two year old to sleep with a mark. “What?!” she demanded, once her mouth caught up with her brain.

Nat actually seemed surprised at her outburst and quickly shook her head. “Okay, I realize it sounds a lot worse than it is. Trust me when I say there's absolutely _no_ sex. I always get the information I need _way_ before that would ever come into play. Or I should say, Natty gets the information. And then kills the mark, of course. Because if they'll do that with me, they'll do that with another Little, one not able to defend themselves.”

Maria shook her head, pulling her knees up to her chest as she tried to process all of this. There was information coming at her from so many different sides, she wasn't even sure what to think anymore. “That doesn't make it okay, Nat. I don't even know why you're telling me this. How did you jump to _that_ after telling me about almost killing Morse?”

Nat actually looked confused herself for a moment, replaying their conversation in her head to try and pick up the thread she may have dropped. “I was telling you that I'm dangerous, even while Little. That's why they built this room, so I could come in here when I thought I might drop into my unsafe Little headspace.”

“Your ‘unsafe Little headspace’?” Maria asked, desperately trying to follow along.

Nat nodded her head. “You know what it’s like to drop. That momentary loss of control when things go from clear to fuzzy to clear again?”

Maria knew what Nat was talking about, though she wouldn’t have described it as going fuzzy. For her it felt more like that split second when you’re tipping backwards in your chair and you don’t know whether you’re actually going to fall or not. Except dropping always involved righting yourself at the last minute, just as a Little now instead of an adult.

“I sort of understand,” Maria hedged, wanting to know what Nat was getting at, but also not entirely sure she wanted to get involved in a discussion about dropping right then. She wasn’t worried about it happening to her, it just continued to fuel the anger she still felt about the night before.

“Okay, well imagine instead of things becoming clear again, they stayed fuzzy? So what should have been a single moment stretches into an endless amount of moments and there’s nothing you can do to kick your brain into making things clearer. That’s my unsafe Little headspace. I can’t control it when I’m like that.”

Maria blinked as she tried to imagine experiencing something like that. She couldn’t however. It just didn’t compute. For her she went from adult, to ‘oh shit I’m gonna fall’, to ‘phew, I didn’t fall, but hey I’m Little now’. Whether she freaked out once she’d become Little had nothing to do with the _act_ of becoming Little, but simply the emotions or situation that triggered the drop in the first place.

“Yeah, I still don’t follow. And what do you mean by ‘you can’t control ‘ _it_ ’ when you’re like that’?” she asked.

“ _‘It’_ is The Black Widow. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Killed a couple hundred people in her time. Mostly bad guys, with the occasional exception of a hospital full of innocent children,” Nat retorted almost angrily, as if the question hadn't needed to be asked, or that it should have been obvious to Maria. It wasn't, and it still didn't make any fucking sense.

“ _You’re_ The Black Widow, Natasha. That’s your name, your call sign. You’re not making any sense again.” Maria was quickly losing her patience with the other girl and was seriously considering just getting up and leaving finally.

“I am _not_ The Black Widow!” Nat practically exploded at her, her nostrils flaring as she reached down and gripped the edges of the platform she was sitting on. “The Black Widow is a _monster_ that lives inside my head, Maria. She’s my Little side. My _real_ Little side. Not the fake, secondary one that you've been interacting with. She’s a two year old murder bot with the strength of an adult who’ll indiscriminately kill everyone in her path because that’s what she’s been _programmed_ to do.”

Maria stared blankly at Nat. “What the hell do you mean you’re ‘real’ Little side? Was everything last night- was everything for the past month just an _act_?”

Nat sighed and shook her head. “It’s not an act. I’m good, but I’m not _that_ good. When I drop, there’s always a chance I’ll end up in that fuzzy zone, and when that happens, The Black Widow comes out instead of Natty. I can’t control her when it’s like that. But Natty I _can_ control. I can tell her to do things, like put on a specific Disney movie, or hand a ringing telephone to someone she may not have done otherwise.”

“Right, but you’re talking about your Little side as if she’s a completely separate personality from yourself. It’s always you, Nat. You’re just two different ages in one body. That’s how it works.” Maria explained, having a really hard time believing that the other girl didn’t understand these things. Even _she_ understood these facts, and she rarely acknowledged her own Little side.

“Maybe in a normal individual, but I was programmed to be different. Brainwashed, as you said earlier. They trained our Little sides the same way they trained us, with fists and with whips. They beat us regularly into submission so that the only thing we would know how to do is obey their orders. To complete the mission. What do you think that type of treatment would do to the psyche of a two year old?”

As horrified as Maria had been before at Natasha’s Katya story, she felt herself almost vibrating with rage at this new revelation. Torturing children was wrong on all fronts, but to do that to a Toddler? It was a miracle Natasha wasn’t outright insane. “Jesus, Nat. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say to that.” She really didn’t, but felt she had to say something to let the other girl know she recognized the magnitude of what she’d just revealed.

Nat just shrugged her shoulders, her grip on the metal bedframe loosening a fraction as her posture relaxed. “I’m not looking for you to say anything. The last thing I want is your sympathy. I’m just trying to explain why I’m like this, and why this room exists, so maybe you won’t cut and run the moment you step foot out of this apartment. What happened to me doesn’t excuse what I did to you, but _fuck_ , I don’t know…” she trailed off, bringing one hand up to brush at some of the hair that had fallen across her forehead. Her pigtails must have come undone at some point in the middle of the night.

Maria didn’t know either, and sat there helplessly, still unsure of what to do or say. Part of her wanted to get up and sit next to Nat, to try and offer her some support or comfort, but the majority of her still wanted to throttle the girl for what had happened the previous night. “Alright, so you’ve explained The Black Widow, why she is like she is, but what about Natty? If she’s not an act, how can she exist? You can’t have two Little selves. Unless we’re talking about some ‘Three Faces of Eve’ kind of thing.”

Nat frowned at the comparison, obviously having heard or thought of it before. “That’s what Coulson thinks it is, but he’s only met The Black Widow once, while on a mission in Budapest. Clint’s met her a few times and says it’s not that. He says she’s the same as Natty, just with our Red Room programming stuck on autoplay.”

For the first time since the whole conversation began, Maria thought she might actually understand what the other girl was saying. “So when you drop, if you go fuzzy, your training kicks in and you become The Black Widow. If you drop normally, there’s no programming and you’re just Natty?”

The relief in the other girl’s eyes was almost palpable from across the room. “Yes, exactly. You’re gonna have to write that down for me later because that explanation is a _lot_ better than my useless rambling,” Nat laughed, and just like that the charged atmosphere in the room vanished and Maria released her hold on her knees and slowly got to her feet.

Climbing carefully out of the nest, she crossed the small room and sat down on the bed frame next to Nat. “You shouldn't call Natty your fake, secondary Little side. That really does make it sound like she's part of an illness, or an act.”

“Like I said, useless rambling,” Nat replied in an almost self deprecating type of way. It didn't fit the girl at all, and Maria wondered if perhaps she was close to dropping.

“Not useless. I’m sure this isn’t something you choose to tell people all that often. If I were to guess, I’d say only Fury, Coulson, Barton and Morse know about this?” Maria asked, nodding herself when Nat nodded her head in agreement. “Well, I’m glad you told me now, instead of waiting until after I’ve seen The Black Widow in action. Might have been a harder sell at that point.”

Natasha snorted at this, but then sobered up pretty quickly. “I don’t think you’ll see her in action. That time with Bobbi was the last time it’s happened. There’s been a lot of false alarms though. That’s partially why there’s an alarm on the door. There’s a thumbprint scanner by the handle that I use if I want to come in here for any reason other than a fuzzy drop. If I open the door without doing that first, an alarm goes off to alert Clint or Bobbi that I’m locking myself in. The door won’t actually lock unless the alarm goes off first, so I can’t cheat the system.”

Maria thought about that a moment, vaguely recalling Nat talking to Clint on the phone the night before. “They don’t want you locking yourself in here without them knowing you’re doing it. So the alarm forces you to call them to get the code to shut it off.”

“They can do it remotely, too. If I was too far gone to call them, I mean. The alarm automatically sends a signal to their phones. The code I got from him last night was actually to turn the alarm off _and_ to unlock the door. You hadn’t closed it behind you, but I didn’t want to run the risk of you accidentally doing that at some later point. Normally they just turn the alarm off and let me wait it out in here for as long as I need to be sure that I’m safe.”

“That’s gotta be rough, especially when they’re on the other side of the world and can’t be here with you,” Maria commented, not sure if she was amazed or envious of the trust the trio seemed to have.

“For them, probably. But you can imagine that I generally prefer it that way. The further they are from me, the less chance there is of me killing them. Though Coulson and Fury have the codes too, incase Clint or Bobbi aren’t able to pick up their phones. It just takes longer for the alarm to trigger the system to call them. I could probably have your phone added too, if you wanted to be involved, that is.” Nat actually stiffened at that last sentence, almost as if she hadn’t meant to say it.

Maria hated that the girl seemed unsure about asking. Like she thought she might be rejected. “Nat, I’m your handler, of course I want to be involved. Even if you haven’t fuzzy dropped in years, the precaution this room provides is important to you, which means it’s important to me. So don’t act so surprised, alright?”

“Honestly, Maria, I _am_ surprised you still want to be my handler after everything I told you. And after what I did to you last night.” Nat turned a little to look across at Maria, her diaper crinkling with the movement. It was still so strange to see her dressed as a Toddler, even if her expression was very much adult Natasha. “I _am_ sorry about that, by the way. You had every right to be angry at me- _have_ every right to be angry. And please don’t think I told you all of this stuff just to change the subject from that.”

Maria hadn’t thought she was trying to change the subject, not until she’d just mentioned the idea, at least. “Whether you were trying to distract me from my anger or not, this stuff needed to be said and so I’m glad you told me. As for being sorry about last night, you have to understand that what you did isn’t something that a simple ‘sorry’ is going to fix.”

Nat’s sudden intake of breath gave away her otherwise unaffected demeanor. She was obviously not expecting that response. It’s not that Maria wanted to punish the girl, it’s just that being forced to drop wasn’t something she could simply shrug off with an apology and a promise to never do it again. There was a _reason_ she hid her status as a Little, and this was it.

“Look, I already said I’d still be your handler, so that’s not going to change. But now that I know you know about me, things _are_ going to be different. Things like this, me coming over to babysit you when you’re Little, that’s not going to happen again. There was a level of trust and secrecy involved in my doing that. As your handler and as a Big, at least on the books, I can get into a lot of trouble with SHIELD if they were to find out what happened here,” Maria explained.

Nat just rolled her eyes. “Coulson babysits for us at least twice a month. SHIELD doesn’t care, Maria. Those rules are strictly on paper. As long as we don’t talk about it openly, no one’s going to get in trouble.”

“You missed the point of what I was saying. I have to _trust_ you not to talk about it openly, and last night you broke that trust. It’s not that I think you’re going to spill my secret, because you’ve obviously known for some time and never said anything, but trust is trust, Natasha. Once it’s lost it’s hard to get it back.” Maria felt pretty shitty saying that, after all the information the other girl had just trusted her with. But this was different. This wasn’t about her past, this was about her present and her future with SHIELD.

“I was kinda hoping the secret keepers thing would help with that,” Nat admitted, sighing miserably.

The thought had occurred to Maria that Nat might think that. She didn’t feel like arguing the illegitimacy of the pact right now, however. Little selves were like minors, unable to enter into binding agreements, but that was besides the point. “I’m not going to tell you about my past; why I hide being Little. You’ll have to re-earn that trust too. But I will tell you that being forced into dropping is a big part of it. Everything that happened afterwards is all but meaningless to me.”

“It wasn’t meaningless to me, though,” Nat quickly replied. “I understand this is no consolation to you, but I really did enjoy interacting with your Little self. She really is adorable, Maria.”

Maria couldn’t remember ever being called adorable before, and it made something in her chest start to tingle. She quickly shook her head, however.

“I’m serious. That impromptu duck dance was absolutely golden. I wish we had cameras installed in the room so you could see yourself like that.”

Maria actually blanched at the idea. She’d seen enough of her Little self on tape to last her a lifetime. Being forced into a drop usually meant waking up with no memories of what had occurred during it, so secretly recording herself had become vital at certain points in her life. She was honestly surprised she remembered anything at all of the night before.

Nat seemed to catch on to her disgust and quickly changed the subject. “I know it's not my place to ask, but I would really love to meet her again. On your terms, of course. And if you're not comfortable coming here, maybe one day I could come to your place and we could both drop?”

Maria didn't even wait for Nat to finish her sentence before she was on her feet, heading for the door. She understood rationally that she didn't mean anything by it. That there was no way she could know. Nat may have had a safe room, but for Maria, her _entire apartment_ was her safe place. There was no way she would ever invite someone over, especially someone who had dropped her once before.

“Wait- Maria! I’m sorry, _shit_.” Nat was on her feet too, following quickly after her retreating form.

Maria slowed down once she’d exited the Little apartment into the main one, spotting her things on the side table where she’d left them with the long forgotten about six pack. She quickly grabbed her wallet and phone in one hand and her keys in the other.

“Maria, stop, please. I’m sorry I suggested that. I won’t go to your place ever, alright? I don’t even know where you live, honest. And the thing about the two of us dropping together, it was just wishful thinking on my part. I’m not expecting it of you, and I promise to God that I won’t ever try and make it happen again.”

“Those are just words, Natasha. If and when you earn my trust back, we’ll see about the joint dropping thing. Though you’re right, my place _is_ off limits, and that part won’t ever change.” Maria was jingling her keys in her hand, a nervous buzz of energy flowing through her. She wanted out of there _now_ , even if it meant driving home barefoot and in kiddie pajamas.

“Understood,” Natasha nodded her head, looking gravely serious all of a sudden.

It didn’t make Maria feel any less edgy however. She just wanted to go home.

“If I run upstairs to grab you some clothes and shoes, will you still be here when I get back?” Nat asked, glancing briefly behind her towards the hallway stairs.

Maria shook her head since there was no point lying about it. As soon as Natasha turned around she was out of there, both mentally and physically.

“Alright…” Nat seemed to pick up on this fact and now appeared reluctant to just let her go. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but are you gonna drop as soon as you walk out of here? You look like you’re on the verge of it, and the last thing you should to do is get behind the wheel if that's the case.”

If Maria _hadn’t_ been on the verge of dropping, she’d have been extremely pissed at Nat for even suggesting she couldn’t drive home. But since she was, she knew the other girl was right. She may have been emotionally rash, but she wasn’t stupid. One deadly car accident was enough for a lifetime, so she simply nodded her head. 

“Okay, you obviously don’t feel safe dropping here so I’m going to call you a Kiddie Cab. Give me your phone, Maria.”

She didn’t protest as Nat took her phone from her hand and made the call. Things were starting to go a little blurry around the edges, but that may have just been from the tears forming in her eyes and not because of the oncoming drop.

“Alright, I made you a reservation under a fake name. They’ll be here in a few minutes. You’ll have to give the driver your address though. Are you going to be able to do that?”

Maria nodded quickly. She wasn’t _that_ far gone. Though even if she was, her Little self knew how to give her address to a cab driver. Kiddie Cabs were specifically marketed for Littles who dropped unexpectedly after driving somewhere and had no other safe way to get themselves home. Or for Littles who thought they might drop and thus didn’t want to risk driving. Suffice it to say, this wasn’t her first time using the service.

“Do you want me to wait outside with you?” Nat asked, handing her phone back.

Maria took it and made to put it in her pocket, only to remember at the last minute that she didn’t have pockets. “I can do it myself,” she answered, her voice slightly shaky as she grew closer to dropping.

“Okay, I believe you.” Nat didn’t sound like she believed her, but that was fine. Maria honestly didn’t care at that point. She just wanted to go home and curl up in bed and cry.

Suddenly there was honk outside, startling the both of them. “Wow, that was insanely fast," Nat commented, walking towards the door.

Maria followed quietly behind, almost sobbing with relief when she spotted the cab and immediately recognized the driver. While it made things slightly awkward since Nat had used an alias for the booking, she at least knew she’d be fine if she dropped while still in the cab.

Pushing the door open, Maria was halfway down the driveway before she realized Nat was still following her. Pausing, she turned to look at the girl for the first time since she’d fled the Safe Room. “I’m fine. I’ll _be_ fine. I’m still your handler. Go back inside before you catch a cold wearing only that.” She gestured at the girl’s onesie. Truthfully, her own outfit wasn’t that much better, but at least some of her legs were covered.

“I will, just- can you maybe call or text me later? Afterwards, when you’re you again? So I know you got home safe and are okay?”

The request actually sobered Maria up a fraction and she sighed, wiping at her damp eyes with the back of her arm. “I’ll text you in a few days, if we don’t get called into work before then.” It was the best she could offer, since she wasn't sure how she was going to feel after she woke up again. Being Little was meant to be cathartic, but sometimes her drops did the opposite of what they were supposed to do. This felt like it might be one of those types of drops.

And while she may not have turned into The Black Widow, she certainly wasn't pleasant to be around when she woke up from one of them.

“Alright. Get home safe,” Nat nodded, taking a few steps backwards towards the apartment. It looked like she wanted to say more but was refraining, something Maria was infinitely glad for.

Turning around again, Maria quickly walked the rest of the way down the path to the cab. After reminding the driver - a Big in her late fifties named Miss Addison - of her home address, she swiftly climbed into the back seat and and yanked the door shut behind her. Once she was safely buckled inside, Maria sank down into the familiar, maroon sheepskin seatcover and _dropped_.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Banner art for RomanoffonamoR's Littleverse series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14117580) by [Reesachan (Clymenestra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clymenestra/pseuds/Reesachan)




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